02.11. The Victory of the Believer's Countenance

Three times in the two psalms before us, there occurs a refrain in identical language. It varies somewhat in the Authorized Version, where the translators have employed different words. In the first instance of its use (Psalms 42:5), the last three words have been attached to the following verse, having probably been so arranged in some manuscript in order to remove what to some scribe seemed an abrupt transition of thought. The following rendition applies in all three instances (Psalms 42:5, Psalms 42:11; Psalms 43:5). It is quite literal:

"Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul, And why art thou disquieted in me?

Await God, for I shall yet praise him - The victory of my countenance - and my God."

God is here revealed not merely as the Deliverer of the soul of the psalmist. In the existing circumstances of spiritual oppression and physical depression that would have itself been a splendid achievement of faith. Jehovah is represented in a larger way, as the Giver of victory to the countenance of the psalmist, so that his enemies fled before his face. The Lord had endued His servant with His own authority from on high, so that, as he went forward in the name of God, opposing circumstances should give way and spiritual enemies would flee apace. This is a New Testament truth in an Old Testament setting. It is one with which every saved and sanctified believer should be familiar. The purpose of the Father provides that each child of His may be a sharer of the throne and the authority of His risen and exalted Son. Over all the power of the enemy this authority extends. It is the believer’s right to bind and loose in the name of Him who has appointed him. As the psalm states it, God is Himself the Victory of the believer’s countenance, so that he fears neither man, nor spirit, nor opposing circumstance.